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To me the difference is simple: Science is reproducible. It's an essential component in the Scientific Method, after all. Reproduce the conditions and you will reproduce the results. Doesn't matter if I do it or you do it, if we do it in my lab or on a park bench a thousand miles from here...

I'd say yes. People read in dim light all the time. Add a dice check if you feel it's needed, but if it was something written by a darkvision creature then they'll have used colors and script sizes that would allow it to be easily readable.

Hey, this involves a 3.5 campaign, though conceptually the ideas may apply to just about any other edition. My character is a Wizard of 17th level. He just finished crafting a Ring of Telekinesis, which took months of down time, a small fortune and a ton of Exp. Now that my character has the...

I don't recall that particular detail, but it's been a few years since I read the books, and they weren't exactly written with game adaptations in mind. (The original Nine Princes in Amber series pre-dated D&D by at least a decade.) If that were the case though, you'd think major wizardy types...

Magic was, traditionally, tied to religion almost exclusively. Just about the only exception I can think of would be "Faeries", and their magic, and even then there are some tales/variations that give even that a religious source. To me, though, "Science" is really just a skin you put over the...

Following up on my own ramble: In D&D, different classes have different spell lists. Some, like the Bard in D&D 3.*, were really light on combat spells. Like, nearly none. (Glitterdust actually counted as an offensive spell for a 3.* Bard. That's how starved they were for damage dealing...

Having read the books and considered this, there was one aspect that caught my eye: Casters "Hung" spells (i.e. prepared them) and they could stay there for a few days before fading. The character involved was specifically Merlin (no, not *that* Merlin), and he tended to hang a few defensive...

Like most of the above responses, I use paper and pencil. If you want a hard mechanic for it, go to a craft store and buy a bag of "wooden nickles", simple wood disks with blank faces. Now, mark one disk for each spell they have prepared, or for each spell slot they have for each spell level...

Odd example, needing Survival or some other skill check to start a fire. Consider a setting from dark ages up to the colonial period: How does someone light the cooking fire at home? How do they keep their house warm? Remember, "Tinder Twigs" (3.5 alchemical item) were special things and...

Thanks. Our exchange seems to have come full circle: What passes for science in a magical setting? Chemistry becomes Alchemy. Physics becomes meta-physics. Astronomy becomes astrology. And as we've come full circle, geometry seems appropriate, specifically a tangent: While Astrology and...

I'm not going to get into a spell by spell debate. My points were simply to show that, while we can make "sciencey noise" about magic and spells, the fact remains that that's all they are. Could we use heat transference to explain fire spells? Sure. Interdimensional shift to explain...

You can make sciencey sounding noise, but since there's no way to actually do any of those things... There used to be discussions about converting components to energy to power evocation spells. The problem is that this would be the equivalent of having a tac-nuke in your hand. The energy...

Monsters have blood. Depending on how exotic the critter the blood may have some odd characteristics, but even that is mostly for color. So, to put it simply, is Metaphysics a subset of Physics? No. Physics is science, subject to reproducibility. Condition A results in Effect B, every...

Being primarily a 3.5 player, I see it through that lens. In 3.5, Genie are the ultimate Elementals, and they aren't interchangeable. Different attitudes/alignments. Djinn can't actually grant wishes, unless they are noble. Generally Chaotic Good people, they can't grant wishes very often...

It's easy to have a player be smarter than their character: Let them take longer than six seconds to think of something he character has to figure out in a single round. Can a character be more likeable than the player? Yes and no. The diplomacy/persuasion aspect is really hard, since a...

I've seen a lot of arguments on this topic. For me, the big one against such things is "additional effects". Poison, for example, wouldn't be delivered if the poisoned weapon never actually touches/cuts the target. Weapons with energy damage the same, though to a lesser extent. We see hit...

My best trap was a large, open hole in the floor, with the word "Trap" scrawled on an adjacent wall over it. What are the odds that someone will walk over to it and look down? Now, what would you like to have happen when they do? Pressure plate for something unrelated? A swinging weight to...

This is a system independent question, so we don't have to worry about offending each other, at least not that way. I stopped by a local game shop and ran into an old friend, and as gaming friends do we began swapping gamin stories. What we both ended up agreeing on is that different players...

My own take is this: It's not that Wizards and other Arcane casters haven't researched or had opportunity to observe and study Cure spells. It's that they can't research or learn them. Short of a gift from a deity, the power source (a deity) for those spells simply isn't available to them...

I think we call that "Bardic Knowledge". :)